With EoE, Allergies, Asthma and a G-Tube

I was very nervous when I first noticed Tinleigh’s eyes turning outwards. I still don’t 100% understand why, but I’m leaning towards connective tissue disorder to blame. We won’t know for sure until we do genetics testing in August.

When I found an eye doctor that looked past her vision being 20/20 and told me we could try to fix her eyes I felt some relief. They tested Tinleigh’s eyes and came up with her exact diagnosis, intermittent exotropia and oculomotor dysfunction in saccades, and what needed to be done. Although her eyes are 20/20, they can’t work together to focus. Think of holding a book in front of your face, both eyes focus on it. Tineigh’s eyes will focus, then one eye drifts and Tinleigh needs to move the book closer or further away so the eyes will refocus. When you watch her read she constantly is moving the book in and out to keep refocusing.

I was curious what vision therapy was. Once I saw her do it for the first time it totally made sense. It’s literally a work out for your eyes. If you’ve ever been to physical therapy, you know you work a specific muscle group to fix whatever your problem is. That’s exactly what vision therapy is. We are working Tinleigh’s eye muscles to make them stronger so they can work together as they should. Tinleigh only actually attends therapy once every two weeks. We are then sent home with her own folder and list of exercises. We must do these exercises 5 days a week. They’re short, sort of fun and super easy. The first few times she did get a headache but those have stopped.

Will it work? We hope so. We were told that she may do great and be done in a few months. It just depends on how her eyes react to treatment. It does happen that as they grown, she could have a growth spurt and may have problems again. We would just repeat therapy. Worst case scenario if her eyes continue to stray outward and she has troubles with reading and school work then we would be facing eye surgery. I don’t think it will come to that though.

Our family

I’m the average stay at home super mom. Run the daily grind of raising two boys and two girls.

I love coffee, dancing, painting and teaching my children how to grow into the best people they can be.

All three of my oldest kids and my husband have Eosinophilic Esophagitis, multiple food and environmental allergies and the kids all have asthma. Our youngest does not have EoE but does have some strong environmental allergies and chronic urticaria. More recently the boys were also diagnosed with Elhers Danlos type 3.

Dealing with these issues daily is hard but we still LIVE life to the fullest. Nothing holds us back. We play sports, visit animal farms, go out to eat on occasion and travel. We LIVE!

I have started this blog in hopes of helping other families dealing with these issues to see the brighter side of life. Let them see they are not the only ones. By sharing how we LIVE and handle certain situations we hope others will be inspired to try to do the same.